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Fatherly Advice

Take a walk down memory lane. You could catalogue all of the times your dad gave you advice. You could also catalogue all of the times he gave you advice and you didn’t listen. For me the latter was the most prominent, as I always knew what was best. I even knew the best way to do things; better than my dad. Which is why I want to pay homage to Dad with these three tidbits of fatherly advice I should have listened to. Oh man….hindsight really is 20/20.

1. Credit Cards: Yourright, Dad. You do have to pay them back.

2. Cars: Regular oil changes….who knew?

3. Work: Hard work pays off. It’s hard not to ignore this mowing the lawn or doing chores.

DAD’S LIKE DEALS

We have a pretty sweet deal for your Dad this Father’s Day and a pretty sweet deal for you. Pick up a BOOMBOT2 and get 20 bucks off!

To Guarantee Father’s Day Delivery (June 15th) Order by these dates:

Thursday 6/12 before 4pm PST – Standard (2-Day) Delivery

Friday 6/13 before 4pm PST – Overnight Shipping

You’ve grown up a bunch and now you probably like the same music. It’s weird how that happens! So the next time you’re sharing a brewski with Pop’s you will be serenaded by the sweet sounds he’s most accustomed to.Thank God for Polaroids, am I right?

HIS FINEST MOMENTS

Our memories sometimes fail and luckily technology is there to help us regale in the most incriminating photos. For Dad, there is no such thing as “too ridiculous” or “over-the-top”, that’s why we’re asking our friends on the intertubular webs to show off their goofiest photos of Dad on Instagram!

That said, you send us the goods, we’ll deliver the goods. Check the prizes and contest info below!

Company takes hands-free concept to the extreme

In order to reduce the amount of background noise that often gets picked up when using hands-free calling, Motorola has come up with the super extreme solution of tattooing a smartphone microphone into a user’s neck.

the comprehensive guide to everything you need to know about wireless portable speakers

If you’re curious to know about wireless portable speakers, this article goes into great depth on every aspect of these devices from construction, materials, acoustic properties and more. Boombotix has been building wireless portable speakers for over three years now, so we figured we’d share some of our knowledge for your reference. If you are looking to build your own wireless portable speakers, you may also want to reference this article on hardware product design. You may learn a lot from our product design and use it as a starting point for your personal wireless speaker project. If you have any questions, feel free to comment and we will see if we can be of assistance. Let’s get right into it.

Beats Pill v. Boombotix boombot REX portable speaker review

Today we compared the Beats Pill to our Boombot REX to determine what are some of the Top Bluetooth Wireless Speakers here in 2013. Below is a chart showing you some the key differences between these two speakers. Beats has become a household name in the headphone market owning more than 65% market share of premium headphones. This will be a true test on whether or not they can take the headphone expertise and apply it to a slightly more challenging project in building a great sounding speaker.

pricing

The Beats Pill retails for $199 although it is currently seeing an Amazon street price at $156. SOMEHOW, despite this abysmal sound quality, it is maintaining a 4-star rating on there. The Boombot REX is currently on pre-order at $119.99 with an anticipated launch date poised for June 1st from Boombotix direct and Apple.com.

sound

Despite the millions of dollars of R&D, the Beats Pill has some of the most bizarrely distorted acoustics we’ve seen out of all the portable speakers we’ve tested. It’s almost as though whoever built it was on a pill of some sort. The Beats Pill is driven on four small one-inch drivers while the Boombot REX runs off of two 1.5-inch drivers and a passive radiator. To get an idea of just how bad the Beats Pill sounds, you should probably watch the video.

Design + function

The Beats Pill has a couple of bells and whistles including NFC pairing. For those of you that use Android, this is pretty useful. If you’re familiar with the Jawbone Jambox, the Beats Pill is like the round version of the Jambox without nearly the low end frequency performance. We actually maxed out the Beats Pill to the point where the amp seemed to just quit and make a static humming noise. We thought that was very interesting. The Pill is wrapped 360-degrees in a fine speaker mesh. While it looks good, I worry a little that it will get bumped very easily. It is small enough to slide in my pocket, but it kind of looks like a banana if you catch my drift.

The Boombot REX is quite a bit lighter and more compact that the Beats Pill. If you are looking for a more adventurous companion, this could be a better bet. The integrated clip makes this unit infinitely more versatile and mobile than the design of the Beats Pill. The Boombot REX also incorporates built-in Siri/Voice-Control allowing for a more seamless handsfree experience.

The Beats is available in a narrow selection of 3-colors (red, white, and black) while the Boombot REX will be launching with 4-colors in the initial run and a full Limited Edition series to be released in July 2013.

Check out some of our other Portable Speaker Reviews and comparisons if you want to get the pulse on all the best mobile audio gear on the market.

our guide of speakers that can get wet and nasty

In the world of water resistant portable speakers there are a TON of shapes, sizes and price ranges to pick from, but very few are actually water resistant. We wanted to do a little more research on the portable speaker space so you don’t have to. If you are adventurous and demand a little more than stationary docking from your sound system, check this guide of systems that fit the bill for handling the elements.

What does IP stand for?

IP stand for ingress protection rating. Speaker that are truly water resistant should have an IP rating. There are usually two digits that come along with an IP rating (IP-XX). The first digit corresponds to the water resistance and the second digit corresponds to the resilience to dust. Devices that reach IP-6X can be submersed and ones that are IP-5X can be exposes to a fair amount of moisture, rain, or snow. Tests are administered by 3rd party labs and they involve spraying specific amounts of water using jets. Each housing is inspected at the end of the tests to determine if leakage occurred.

Typically the sound systems we evaluated range from $30-150 priced in such a way that you don’t have to feel the pain of the casual drop and bump. Some manufacturer’s have varying warranty lengths from Boombotix’s NO MATTER WHAT WARRANTY program to the buy at your own risk gamble.

The Boombots are derived from urban vinyl toy design fused with ruggedized industrial design. They give you an audio adventure wherever life takes you. IP53 with a NO MATTER WHAT one year warranty. Get saucy.

These speakers can take a good beating, but for the size, we’re not too impressed with the sound output. It’s bout 30% bigger than a Jawbone Jambox, but puts out about 30% less volume. How is that possible? It is a burly package nonetheless.

The Grace ECO Extreme houses your smartphone inside it while playing from a 3W speaker. With AA batteries, the unit comes in a bit on the heavy side and you’ll be pumping $5 of alkaline into here every 30 hours. IP6X

The REX is one of the newest developments in Boombotix labs. REX is scheduled to ship in Q1 of 2013 with a noise-canceling microphone and Siri integration. IP5X

Perhaps a little bit on the large side to take on a hike, these EcoXGear waterproof speakers can take quite a bit of moisture. A good speaker solution for those just looking to stay posted.

This Philips Shoqbox for sure looks like it can take a beating with it’s ruggedized super industrial design. This resembles a very common architecture like the Jawbone Jambox, but with that next layer of weatherproofing. At $155, it also beats out the Jambox in price.

This play off the Jammy Pack is yet another heinous way to wear a speaker. That thing is huge. Please tell me that nobody ACTUALLY does this. This unit also takes AA batteries so we would NOT recommend.